I was having some trouble thinking earlier and ended up looking at the wordle pix again to quiet my brain. The one below caught my eye because it is a picture of what was going on in my head. It is a pretty accurate illustration of what I mean when I say (or write) that …
I finally got around to watching this. Pretty amazing. 6 minutes and 29 seconds well spent! Thanks to Keith Olbermann and to all the folks who have been spreading this video around.
As a supervisor, Karen is patient, humorous and is clear about her expectations of the team. She brings out the best in people by looking at issues from different angles and valuing others’s opinions. — quote from K’s nomination letter Wednesday was the ceremony for the UCSF Great Person Award that Karen won in December. …
Amanda at Ballastexistenz has written an excellent post for Blogging Against Disablism Day describing what it is like to be autistic and taking a look at the trend of accusing people of using autism as an excuse for having poor social skills, among other things. The post goes on to talk about techniques used by …
My brain has not been cooperating lately, but thankfully it seems to be taking a turn for the better these past couple of days. Yesterday was the first day I was feeling good enough to get out of the house since Saturday, not including short trips to the BART station. Went to the library in …
Locked in my room. Loud in my head. Friends outside. I hear them laughing but I can not join them. I tried. Very bad. So hard to separate their voices. K, Lorena, Tess. It is Tess’ birthday. Happy bday Tess. Makes me tired. I can feel every speck of dust in the air. Hear it. …
Do or do not. There is no Try. –Yoda I am not a Jedi, so I suppose those words were not meant for me, but from what I can tell, trying = effort and everything takes effort. Therefore, there is a try. Went to another aspie meeting on Sunday. Not sure if I liked it …
Maybe that is an unfair title. I think that most of the time, I am not an idiot. But there are a few things that I am repeatedly stupid about and no matter how many identically bad experiences I have, I do the same thing over and over again. The first thing is having too …
It is so hard to do things lately. Too hard. Hard to think. Hard to work. Hard to play. There are very few people that I can stand to be around. The rest make my skin crawl. It is loud in my head. Too loud. Sometimes it is background noise. Now it is very loud. …
Today is my birthday. Makes me happy 🙂 K took me to see Phil Lesh and Friends in the city (SF) on Saturday night to celebrate and today we will celebrate again. Not exactly sure how yet, but I do know that birthday cake will be involved. If it is not raining we will go …
I am too busy. I suck at being busy. It is my worst thing and it always ends badly. I am not sure how to not be busy. It is a vicious cycle. As soon as I start feeling better, I want to do things. All the things that I can’t do when I am …
Things have been slowly getting back to normal (whatever that is). Both lumps are a lot smaller and I am not so tired anymore. I have even been able to work some. A nightmare has come and gone. My body and brain have been to all sorts of new places. Most of them sucked. I …
I am tired and weak and and I’ve never been happier 🙂 K took this picture yesterday at the Greek Theater where we were seeing Phil Lesh and Friends. I was too tired to even sit up for most of the show, but I had a great time anyway laying on the grass and listening.
I am going to be OK. I have cat scratch fever! Not lymphoma! I am so happy. Still in shock a little. My parents and Karen were all here when I got the good news. We had a happy cryfest. I am so happy. Did I mention that? Thanks to everybody for everything! Antibiotics will …
i have been on the edge of panic for nearly 2 weeks now. ever since i noticed the first lump. there are things that help. sometimes ativan, but I like to leave that as a last resort because so many thing are going on in my body, it is already hard to keep them straight. …
I am terrified. There is a big lump in my neck above my collarbone and another in my armpit. Will get a biopsy on wednesday. doc thinks it is most likely lymphoma. i don’t know what to do.
I am starting to wonder if it is possible for me to really have a “normal” life. Things are so much better than before and my meds are finally working again, but even though I can do so many more things now, I am realizing that my limits and tolerance are still pretty low. Things …
A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering when my life would be back to normal. This past weekend, it bulldozed past normal and entered into surreality. Friday night I was still my regular self. Karen went to the dyke march and then out dancing at Mango with Lorena and Tess, and I stayed home because I didn’t want to be around so many people.
On Sunday, the day of the pride parade, I decided that I wanted to go. Not just go. I wanted to MARCH IN THE PARADE with our temple (or at least what might be our temple if we ever get around to checking it out more). I had a good time. It is actually less crowded in the parade than watching it from the sidelines. There was this Jewish youth group in front of us that were all wearing bright orange shirts. Fresh squeezed orange jews. Sorry, I tried not to write that, but I couldn’t resist. Every time the parade stopped, they would perform a same sex jewish wedding under a rainbow flag chuppah, smash a plastic cup wrapped in a napkin, and then run around in circles singing. Made me happy.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling much better than I have in at least a year. My new meds are finally working pretty good, even great in comparison to the last 2 horribly failed experiments. I can breathe. My body is not completely taken over in every way possible. I can work. I can leave the house.
Still, things do not feel completely normal yet. This weekend, me and K went to a party to celebrate one of my Sensei’s promotion from Godan (5th degree black belt) to Rokudan (6th degree black belt, Master) and a bunch of other promotions too. Rokudan is a pretty huge deal in Cuong Nhu. There are only 5 in total and only one woman (my Sensei). I wasn’t sure I would make it, but I really wanted to go. It was a great reason to celebrate and I miss my dojo very much.
It occurred to me that the thing that would make my life feel “normal” again would be going back to class. Besides from loving martial arts, going to class was the only regular contact I had with other people. A dojo is a special place and I have been very lucky to find such a great school with the most amazing teachers I could ever imagine and a bunch of nice people in general. I have been a student there for 10 years.
One good thing about being useless for a couple of days is that my brain gets a rest and then suddenly I can do things! I have worked almost non-stop for the past 2 days and gotten tons of stuff done. I realize that working non-stop was how I got to be useless in the …
